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In my New Zealand trip, I have slept in campervan (in holiday park), rented room (in holiday park), and in hotel. Among those 3 choices of accommodation, the cheapest one is campervan, and the most expensive one is hotel. Rented room in holiday park is cheaper than hotel but more expensive than campervan.

Holiday parks are equipped to please a wide range of people for a minimal cost.

If you need electricity in your campervan (for keeping the fridge on, or charging your cell phone, etc) you need to park your campervan at powered sites of holiday park so that you can connect the power cord from your campervan to the power source.

Holiday parks facilities vary from one holiday park to another holiday park. Some holiday parks have complete facilities, some holiday parks have only several kinds of facilities. These are some facilities that you can find in holiday parks: shared kitchen & dining room, shared bathroom (showers & toilets), laundry room, games room, children playground, BBQ, swimming pool, mineral pool (hot water), spa pool, internet, etc.

If you sleep in campervan and park it in holiday park sites, you can take a bath in shared bathroom and you can cook in shared kitchen and you can eat in shared dining room. You can also use all other facilities in that holiday park (games room, TV room, laundry room, etc).

If you sleep at rented room (motel or unit or cabin), it can has its own kitchen & bathroom… or not, because it depends on what type of room you choose. Motel has its own kitchen & bathroom. Self-contained unit has its own kitchen & bathroom. Ensuite unit has its own bathroom but doesn’t have its own kitchen, so you have to use shared kitchen if you want to cook. Standard cabin has to use shared bathroom & kitchen. Kitchen cabin has its own kitchen but has to use shared bathroom. Bathroom cabin has its own bathroom but has to use shared kitchen. So you need to read or ask what facilities does the room has, before you book that room.

If you want to sleep at holiday park (at campervan or cabins or motels or etc), I highly recommend you to choose “Top 10 holiday parks”. If you cannot get top 10 holiday parks, then choose “Kiwi holiday parks”. In my opinion, “Top 10 holiday parks” is the best holiday parks, and kiwi holiday parks is the second best holiday parks. The facilities in Top 10 holiday parks are better & more complete than in kiwi holiday parks.

Top 10 holiday parks have over 45 holiday parks located throughout New Zealand, and Kiwi holiday parks have over 41 holiday parks located throughout New Zealand.

You might think “What is holiday park like?”. Well… see these photos to get you the idea of what it is like. I took these photos when I slept at several different holiday parks throughout New Zealand:

A road trip is the best way to explore the beauty of New Zealand’s very diverse landscapes (The NZ South Island landscapes are amazing!), as you can cover many of its highlights over the course of short time. The best way to travel around New Zealand is by campervan and I also recommend you to sleep at that campervan. The reasons are:

If you sleep at campervan, you are pretty flexible with your schedule and can rearrange things if needed. For example: you planned to stay at certain place of interest for 1 day, but when you arrive at that place you want to stay there for 2 days (because you like the place), so you can just change your plan easily because you sleep at campervan. But if you have booked a hotel room or holiday park’s rental room (instead of sleeping in campervan) then you cannot change your plan because you have to be at the hotel (or holiday park’s rented room) at the date you have planned if you don’t want to lose your booking money (in other words, you need to stick to your planned schedule, if you have booked a room).

It’s more fun to travel by campervan and sleeping in a campervan

Sleeping in campervan is cheaper than sleeping in a hotel or in holiday park’s rented room.

If you plan to sleep in campervan, you need to park your campervan in a holiday parks sites because you are not allowed to park anywhere you like (such as on the side of the road or at other not supposed place). If you park somewhere you’re not supposed to be, you’ll very likely have an encounter with a policeman, not to mention a hefty fine.

In holiday park:

you can park your campervan in “powered sites” or in “non-powered sites”.

You’d better rent a campervan from a good company. You need to choose which campervan is suitable for your need because there are many types of campervan. These are some types of campervan:

“powered campervan” or “non-powered campervan”

for 2 people or 4 people or 6 people.

Toilet or without toilet.

some have these equipments and some don’t have: fridge, microwave, stove.

Etc

I recommend you to choose “powered campervan”. If you choose “powered campervan”, then when you want to sleep and park the campervan in holiday park (in the powered site), you can connect the external power cord from your campervan to the power source in powered sites of the holiday park. By doing that, you will have electricity in your campervan so that you can keep the fridge on, charge a cell phone, laptop, camera or even use a hair dryer. If you have raw meat in your fridge, you need to keep the electricity on. That’s why it’s important that you rent a “powered campervan”.

We used Britz campervan in our trip. You can see several types of campervan on this Britz site.

When you want to go to New Zealand, you might have these questions in your mind: what is the best time to go, where should I go, which transportation should I use, where should I sleep, what activities can I do, etc.

I’ve visited New Zealand on summer and winter season. I’ve been to south island and north island of New Zealand. So I want to share some tips & tricks that I learned during my New Zealand trip. Hopefully this tips & tricks can help you in planning your New Zealand Trip.

The daylight hours is long. Dawn is as early as 5 am, while dusk settles around 10 pm. So you will have a lot of time to go anywhere and do lots of things. Summer weather in New Zealand allows you to spend a lot of pleasant time outdoors. When I went on a vacation there on summer (december 2011), every day is a nice clear day (good weather, blue sky) and never rain.

There are lots of colorful flowers in many places (I saw lots of them in december 2011), so it’s beautiful to see.

lots of flowers along the roadside

You can enjoy the time outside doing this things: siting on the grass or sitting on the bench outside or sitting on the shore of the lake or do other things.

Notes for summer :
On summer season, temperatures on the South Island of New Zealand can be as low as 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) at night and as high as 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day.

2. Don’t go on winter. The reasons are:

It’s dangerous to drive in winter season in New Zealand. The roads are slippery, and there is landslide at some part of the road (the landslide can hit you when you drive).

Some roads are closed due to snow.

It’s raining almost everyday (it was raining almost everyday in my winter trip), so in a lot of time you cannot see anything. New Zealand landscape (especially South Island) is amazing and very diverse, so it’s a pity if you cannot see such amazing scenery due to rain.

The amount of daylight hours is so short. It has around 9 to 10 hours of daylight in a day. So your activities (seeing scenery, doing outdoor activities) can only be done in a short time.

You cannot enjoy the time outside doing this things: sitting on the grass or sitting on the bench outside or sitting on the shore of the lake.

You cannot do some of outdoor activities, such as kayaking, canoeing, etc, because it’s so cold outside.

3. Minimum time to visit New Zealand is 2 weeks. Don’t visit New Zealand less than 2 weeks. Actually, even in 2 weeks, there will be several places that you don’t have the time to visit.

4. In that 2 weeks trip, just stick to the South Island. The reasons to visit South Island (instead of North Island) are:

South Island’s landscape is much more beautiful and more diverse than North Island’s landscape. The South Island’s scenery is breathtakingly beautiful. South Island has the best scenery of New Zealand. Because of the stunning nature of New Zealand, The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was being filmed in New Zealand, mostly in South Island.

You will be covering more places in South Island than in North Island, at the same amount of time. In South Island, many places of interest are located near to each other (all within easy reach of each other), so you will be covering quite a lot of places in South Island in a short time. In North Island, the distance between one place of interest to other place of interest is quite far (compared to places in South Island), so you will be covering only a few places in North Island in a short time.

New Zealand has a total of 14 national parks, 9 of which are located on the South Island.

The 10 highest mountains in New Zealand are all located on the South Island. The highest mountain is Mount Cook. The Southern Alps run from the top of the South Island all the way down to the bottom of the South Island.

New Zealand has many glaciers. The 5 largest glaciers are located on the South Island.

Fiordland national park on the South Island is New Zealand’s largest national park, and also a large wilderness area. This area does not only have large lakes, but also tall mountain peaks and waterfalls tumbling down into the fiords. It offers some of the most spectacular scenery in New Zealand.

Four of the 5 largest lakes in New Zealand are located on the South Island:

Marlborough, which is located on the South Island, is New Zealand’s most significant wine-producing region. In addition, Central Otago on the South Island is becoming well-known for its wineries and award-winning pinot noir wines.

The South Island has Queenstown as the adventure capital of New Zealand.

The South Island is more rural than the North Island, so there are many farms and there are many sheep that you can see while you are driving. Sometimes you will also see cattle while you are driving.

5. A road trip is the best way to explore the beauty of New Zealand’s very diverse landscapes, as you can cover many of its highlights over the course of short time. The best way to travel around New Zealand is by campervan and also sleep at that campervan. The reasons are:

If you sleep at campervan, you are pretty flexible with your schedule and can rearrange things if needed. For example: you planned to stay at certain place of interest for 1 day, but when you arrive at that place you want to stay there for 2 days (because you like the place), so you can just change your plan easily because you sleep at campervan. But if you have booked a hotel room or holiday park’s rental room (instead of sleeping in campervan) then you cannot change your plan because you have to be at the hotel (or holiday park’s rental room) at the date you have planned if you don’t want to lose your booking money (in other words, you need to stick to your planned schedule, if you have booked a room).

It’s more fun to travel by campervan and sleeping in a campervan

Sleeping in campervan is cheaper than sleeping in a hotel or in holiday park’s rental room.

I recommend you to choose “powered campervan” instead of “unpowered campervan”.

6. Pick up brochures and guidebooks (free of charge) on arrival at the airport or at I-SITES or at holiday parks or at car rental office. In those brochures/ guidebooks, you will find many information about New Zealand (places of interest, accommodation, maps, holiday parks, etc), and you will also find discount vouchers and/or special packages.

7. These are several things you can do that can help you minimize costs of your New Zealand vacation:

Use discount vouchers and/or special packages from many of the brochures/ guidebooks that you picked up at the airport or at I-SITES or at holiday parks or at car rental office.

Sleep at campervan, instead of sleeping in a hotel or in holiday parks’ rental room. Sleeping in campervan is cheaper than sleeping in a hotel or in holiday park’s rental room.

If you don’t want to sleep at campervan, you can sleep at holiday park’s rental room (cabins, units, motels). The holiday parks’ rental room is cheaper than hotel room.

Eat well with less money by buying your food ingredients in supermarket (SuperValue or PAKnSAVE or Countdown) instead of buying food at the restaurant. You can even eat steak everyday with a cheap price. This is how you do it: buy marinated steak in the supermarket, then cook it in the kitchen of holiday parks or hostel. When we went to the supermarket in our trip, there was a marinated lamb t-bone steak (1 pack consists of 6 slices of lamb t-bone steak) with the price of 5 new zealand dollar. So you get 6 slices of lamb t-bone steaks for 5 dollar. It’s cheap, isn’t it? If you like to eat rice often, then you had better also buy rice cooker and rice at that supermarket.

8. If you plan to sleep in campervan, you need to park your campervan in a holiday parks sites because you are not allowed to park anywhere you like (such as on the side of the road or at other not supposed place). If you park somewhere you’re not supposed to be, you’ll very likely have an encounter with a policeman, not to mention a hefty fine.

9. Holiday parks provide sites for tents, caravans and campervans and many also have simple cabins, self-contained motel units and backpackers’ lodges. If you want to sleep at holiday park (at campervan or cabins or motels or etc), I highly recommend you to choose “top 10 holiday parks”. If you cannot get top 10 holiday parks, then choose “kiwi holiday parks”. In my opinion, “Top 10 holiday parks” is the best holiday park, and kiwi holiday parks is the second best holiday parks. To know more about holiday parks, read it at this post New Zealand trip, sleep at holiday parks (cheaper than hotel) .

10. If you are a muslim, be careful when you buy a sausage, because lots of sausages in New Zealand contain some pork in it, even though it is a beef or chicken sausage. The beef or chicken sausage often is not consist of 100% beef or chicken, but it contains some pork in it. So when you buy a beef or chicken sausage in supermarket, you need to read the ingredient lists on the label on that sausage to know whether that sausage contains some pork or not.

13. Learn about New Zealand road rules before going to New Zealand. To know more about it, read it in this post: New Zealand road rules (to be written soon).

14. To know most up-to-date road condition (map and webcams of traffic conditions) go to this site: traffic and travel information or go to this site traffic information map. or ring 0800 4 HIGHWAYS (0800 444 449). This phone service is available 24/7. From that links or phone number, you will know which road is closed, and other live traffic information.

16. Use google maps to get an approximate travel time and distance between two points in New Zealand. If you know your travel time and distance, you can make a better plan of your New Zealand trip.

17. You can check on New Zealand weather conditions on the Met Service website. This is what you will see on that website:

To know the weather in detail for each city, click “town and cities” and choose 1 (for example choose queenstown), and you will see this:

18. The number to call if you need the Fire service, Police or an ambulance in an emergency is 111.

19. You might want to download CamperMate app on your smartphone. In that app, you will have information such as free campsites, cheap campsites, holiday parks, hostels, public restrooms, wifi, water, etc. You can download that app from this site: CamperMate

Drive from Lake Tekapo to Fairlie via state highway 8, then from Fairlie to Geraldine via state highway 79, then from Geraldine to Ashburton via state highway 79 and state highway 1, then from Ashburton to Christchurch (final destination) via state highway 1. From Christchurch airport you can fly back to your country. End of trip.

When you’re driving from Geraldine to Ashburton, before you reach Ashburton you will find farmers corner/ highway one restaurant. In that place you can eat at the restaurant, or buy somethings in the shop, or see many flowers & alpaca animals on the outside of the building.

In the shop, they sell any kind of things, but my favorites are the animal toys. The animal toys are so great & cute (penguin, sheep, alpaca, etc). There is a penguin toy that can be transformed into a pillow. And there is a sheep toy that can be transformed into a pillow.

These photos are taken at farmers corners/highway one restaurant, on december (summer):

alpaca, farmers corners

alpaca, farmers corners

The location of farmers corner/ highway one restaurant:

We have come to the end of this series “new zealand trip, where to go?”. I hope my posts can help you in planning your New Zealand trip. Till we meet again in the next post (New Zealand trip, tips and tricks).

Picturesque by day and dazzling by night, Lake Tekapo is part of UNESCO Dark Sky Reserve, making it the perfect spot for stargazing.

Lake Tekapo has been ranked one of the best spots in the world for stargazing. Most of the areas in the Northern Hemisphere had too much light pollution which prevented good stargazing, whereas the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve, of which Lake Tekapo was part, had used special shields and lightbulbs for 30 years to point the light downwards in order to preserve the night sky.

Lake Tekapo (and Lake Pukaki) are my most favorite lakes in New Zealand. The view of the lakes and surrounding area are so breathtakingly beautiful. I was mesmerized by the view. The color of the lakes are turquoise (bluish-green color). Lake Tekapo gets its intense milky-turquoise color from the fine rock-flour (ground by glaciers) which is suspended in the water. The lakes looks much more impressive when you see it in person than it does in photograph or video. But you have to catch the lakes on a sunny day to get to see its mesmerizing color.

There are lots of beautiful lupin flowers on the shores of the Lake Tekapo when I was there on December (summer).

On the shores of the Lake Tekapo, you’ll see the Church of the Good Shepherd, where the altar window frames a perfect view of the Southern Alps beyond the lake.

Built as a memorial to the pioneers of the Mackenzie region, the Church has been home to thousands of weddings, and has seen more than its fair share of visitors to its grounds.

The foundation stone was laid by HRH the Duke of Gloucester, on January 15 1935. The builders of the Church were instructed that the site was to be left undisturbed, and that even the matagouri bushes surrounding the building were to remain.